A Leaf's Journey
by Prismatic
Summary: I just let life carry me along, though I want to be free... One man showed me I could even love myself.


I fell through the sky  
And into you  
as deep as water  
as strong as the wind....   
  
  
  
  
A Leaf's Journey  
by Prismatic  
  
Shounen-ai, introspective, angst. Spoilers for end of the anime. (End of Kyoto Arc, manga.)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
There was a time when I couldn't feel anything on my own. Couldn't do anything. Helpless. Actually, there were probably a lot of times. Sleepwalking through life from the pain of day to the pain of night. I was always alone, but I never had solitude...Others' emotions shuddering through me, like alcohol, or fire. Everything depended on someone else. Sometimes, I think it's not just me, or because of my curse. Everyone's like that...stimulus, response. Reacting rather than acting.  
  
Like animals.  
  
Tsuzuki asks me if he's human.  
  
What a ridiculous question. He's the most human person I've ever known. He is purely selfless, acting always for others, to protect them, care for them keep him safe. To take a life, to allow someone to die, even though it be in the course of his work, even if it's what is 'supposed' to happen...it's slowly killing his spirit, inside. I should know.  
Tsuzuki acts. He follows his own heart, and his own heart directs him to put himself in jeopardy over and over again. The idiot. He's not controlled by the actions of others, he doesn't act merely to survive, although anyone would have forgiven him that, forgiven him if he became embittered by his own pain...like me. I hold no illusions about myself. I know I'm a selfish little bastard. A child, no matter how old I may grow inside, or how weary I become; not because my body will never age, but because I can't be like him, I can't let it go. I hold on. Like a dog with a rag, I tear and shred at my own anger, but it only multiplies my pain. My pain, my hate, in my reactions to Muraki. My parents. My own death. It festers. I know it. I want to let go, I want to be free, but I don't know how to act on my desires. I just let life carry me along, no plans, no decisions. It's easier that way.  
  
But Tsuzuki, he still tries to protect. To save.  
Even me.  
  
I've read a lot. Science, history, folklore, the classics. You name it.  
It drove away my pain for a while, and filled my mind with something besides bitterness and the emotions of strangers. That was one thing, I think, that truly enriched my soul...maybe even made me grow, a bit. Beyond my own shell and sphere.  
  
I read philosophy and psychology. The superego, Freud says, is the source of all selfless human action, higher values, moral behavior. Self-sacrifice. Unconditional love. A lot of people think those are just behaviors humans have learned, as highly social creatures, in order to survive. Hell, I used to. Then I met him, and I learned a lot of things that I read were wrong. I also learned a new way to detest myself...different from the old self-hatred. Tsuzuki made me want to become a better man. Yes, a man. A man inside, not a selfish child. A human being who's truly empathetic, not because he feels others' emotions, but because he cares about what others are feeling. Tsuzuki quietly saved me from myself. He didn't stop, though. He kept on caring about me, like I was worth something. Like I was worth something to him.  
  
And I eventually realized that was all I cared about.  
  
For him, I could let go of my pain, because he was happy. I could care because he cared. I could try, because he was trying so hard, for me, for himself, for everyone, to be happy, to be good, to erase the darkness of the past. For him, I keep trying. To better myself. And not only for him; but for myself as well, because he showed me, with his unfailing kindness, that I could love myself. I'm not saying that it's all better now. It's not. I still wake up in the middle of the night screaming, get angry and cry for no reason. In the early hours it's easy to feel your regrets sneaking up on you. Easy to pretend you can float through your own experiences without affecting them at all, like you're not a player in your own life. I can't say that I stopped hating myself for who I am, for what I am, for pushing people away to save myself from getting hurt. But I did start loving myself for no better reason than simply being me. How can you love and hate yourself at the same time? I don't know. It's possible, though. And it's a start.  
  
  
I could love, I realized, because he loved me.  
  
When Tsuzuki gave up on himself, it was because he thought he had failed. He thought that he could never protect those he swore to protect, couldn't save the innocent from death. Maybe he couldn't save everyone, but he meant so much to so many people. He forgot about all that, and he thought he had nothing left to seek but oblivion. Watching him surrounded by that scouring flame, arms open to his own destruction, was the worst thing I could have imagined...for a heart stopping moment, I thought I could do nothing, I thought it would happen all over again, I'd lose everything, the world would spin and spin and I could only watch. Then it was as if someone threw cold water right in my face...I realized that I loved him, really truly loved him, and that he was about to die.  
  
I acted.  
  
I reached out for him, because I loved him, because I couldn't lose him, and the world, as dirty and cruel as it was, didn't deserve to lose him either. I couldn't imagine my life without him.  
  
I'd like to think that, if the unspeakable had happened, and...Well, I'd like to think that I had learned enough from him that I could go on. That I could live on.  
  
  
For the first time in my life, I was thankful. I am the driving force of that life now, and I no longer have to be carried along by the winds of the world, unpredictable and hostile.  
  
I'm so thankful that I can continue on with him.  
  
Now I'll never have to journey alone. 


End file.
